BERLIN TRIBUTE TO WESTERN AIR-LIFT FLIERS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22758, 2 October 1948, Page 5

BERLIN TRIBUTE TO WESTERN AIR-LIFT FLIERS

(N.E.P.A. —Router—Copyright.) * (11 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 1. Western Berliners celebrated the one-hundredth day of the air-lift by sending delegations to the United States Army’s Tempelhof airport and the R.A.F.’s Gatow airport to pay tribute and present gifts and mementoes to the air-lift fliers. The democratic parties in Berlin, in a joint declaration, reaffirmed their determination to fight for the principles of democracy, says Reuter's correspondent in Berlin. “We want to live free from fear in all four sectors,” the declaration states. “We want the exchange of products in all four zones, free from boundaries. The way to peaceful recovery is blockaded as long as 3,000,000 people are deprived of human rights. No violence can force them to renounce their fight.” The American commandant of Berlin. Colonel F. Howley, said that the air-lift had been so effective that Allied experts were considering whether to increase the Western Berliners’ rations this winter-

A British spokesman said the airlift already had brought 258,000 tons of food and coal to Berlin. The average daily tonnage had risen from 1559 in July to 3770 in September. Berlin now had food reserves for 39 days compared with 34 on June 23 when the blockade began. Six thousand tons of miscellaneous materials had been flown, including newsprint, cigarettes and material for building the Berlin West power station. The French commandant, General Ganeval, said there was no time limit on the air bridge. The British United Press correspondent in Berlin says the Americancontrolled Berlin radio, which sends out a radio guiding beam for air-lift pilots when necessary, was jammed today. The director of the station said he could not tell whether the jamming was accidental or intentional.